White balance for concert

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Davoosie

Member
I was hired to shoot a concert for a local band, I was just curious how I should white balance for the shoot?

I was told just to set it for house lighting, and another person told me to leave it on auto. Well thats great if I had a camera that had an auto WB, but mine manual.

So what is the correct way?

Thanks
 
I usually just set it to the tungsten (3200K a.k.a "indoor") preset and leave it. The lights are usually tungsten, but they are dimmed and gelled so much, a true white balance is impossible/pointless. If you don't have a tungsten preset on your camera, then ask the lighting tech to throw some white light on stage and use a white card to do your balance.
 
The above is accurate. There is always a neutral setting in stage lighting that you can go off of, but if you set for tungsten you should be safe to alter in post if needed.

Whoever told you to use auto is someone you really shouldn't listen to with these things. Sometimes it's acceptable, but during a concert the lighting changes and so does your white balance. There is no way to compensate effectively, making it really stand out.
 
stuckfootage said:
I usually just set it to the tungsten (3200K a.k.a "indoor") preset and leave it. The lights are usually tungsten, but they are dimmed and gelled so much, a true white balance is impossible/pointless. If you don't have a tungsten preset on your camera, then ask the lighting tech to throw some white light on stage and use a white card to do your balance.
Click to expand...

Yup, tungsten is the way to go. I know there are devices which can determine the color temp of an object, but I always was told to white balance, filters and then alter it in post.
 
I always go with what others have said; lock it down at 3,200K and leave it there. This will insure you are capturing accurate colour that represents what the lighting director envisioned.
 
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